


By Any Other

by Tallulah_Rasa



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Episode Related, Friendship, Gen, Post Episode: s07e03 Fragile Balance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-29
Updated: 2014-06-29
Packaged: 2018-02-06 18:39:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1868244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tallulah_Rasa/pseuds/Tallulah_Rasa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's hard to say what's better, and who's best.</p>
            </blockquote>





	By Any Other

**Author's Note:**

> A vignette more than a story, post-Fragile Balance. Originally written and posted in 2005, I think, and re-edited in 2007.

_1._

 

"Your move," Jack said, though of course it wasn't really Jack. Except that it was, in the ways that mattered most, which would certainly piss off...well, Jack. If he knew Daniel was thinking it, which he couldn't, as Daniel wasn't with him, but was here playing chess with...Jack. Except, of course, it wasn't really Jack.

Daniel sighed, sat back, and pushed up his glasses. "Are you sure?" he asked, after staring hopelessly at the board for another minute, and trying not to look too much at Jack, who wasn't really Jack, but really was.

"You're thinking too much, Daniel," Jack said. "And your queen's in trouble."

_She's not the only one_ , Daniel thought. He reached out, pulled back, reached out again, and finally raised his eyes. "I--" he began.

"Don't you dare throw in the towel," Jack warned. "I'll be damned if I finally beat you at chess because you gave up."

"It's just..." Daniel began again.

"I don't want to hear it," Jack said. "You know that. You know how I feel about this kind of crap."

"Do I?" Daniel asked.

"I can hurt you," Jack said. "Black ops training, you know."

"It's just--" Daniel repeated.

"You'd feel pretty stupid explaining to Fraiser how you got a rook shoved up your nose," Jack said.

Daniel couldn't help smiling then. "Jack would kill me if he knew I was coming to see you."

"Me, too," Jack said. "Not that he needs an excuse."

"No, he wouldn't," Daniel said.

Jack raised an eyebrow.

"No," Daniel insisted. "It's...Nobody could...That's too difficult. Psychologically, I mean. Symbolically, maybe, but even in mythology, cultures rarely postula--"

"Daniel!"

"He doesn't want to kill you," Daniel said firmly. "Maroon you on another planet, maybe, but not kill you."

Jack nodded at that. "Of course, he doesn't need to get rid of me. He can just ignore me. He's good at avoidance."

Daniel sighed. "He is."

"Don't I know it."

Daniel looked up. " _You_ don't do that. You don't--"

"Avoid stuff? Pretend stuff hasn't happened?" Jack asked. He slouched back on the couch, shoving aside a _Sports Illustrated_ and a pile of probably dirty socks. "Well, I can hardly get away with that now, can I?"

"Jack--" Daniel started.

"Jon."

"What?"

"I keep telling you: call me Jon. Not Jack."

"But--"

"I'm Jon. I'm not Jack."

"You can't pretend you're not Jack," Daniel said. "I--Well, no, I guess you can. I wish you wouldn't, though."

"For crying out loud," Jon said, but gently. "I'm not saying...I'm Jack, okay? I know it. You know it. He knows it. But what I also know is--I'm different." He leaned forward. "Yeah, I'm cloned, but that's not all there is to me. Different experiences, different life. I'm Jack, but different. Jack, but _more_."

Daniel couldn't quite swallow a grin, and Jon gave him a look. "Hey, spilling my guts here."

"Sorry," Daniel said. "It's just that you sounded a lot like Harlan, right then, and I was picturing him meeting Thor, and--hey, I wonder if the Asgard could use Harlan's technology to--"

"Could we stay on _me_ , for a minute?" Jon said.

"You're Jack, but different," Daniel said. "Believe me, I know." A grin escaped him again, a sudden jailbreak. "Jack squared."

"Damn straight."

"So, Jon," Daniel said.

"Also," Jon said, "I'm about to clean your clock at chess.  Jack could never do _that_."

"Neither can you," Daniel said. "I know you, remember? You're not patient enough to beat me at chess."

"You're not infallible," Jon said. "Hey, I've seen you dragged on your butt by a mastadge."

"I've seen you knocked on _your_ butt by Bratec," Daniel countered.

"You got married accidentally--"

"So did you. Talk about May-December relationships--"

"Well you--" Jon said, but his laughter drowned out the rest of the sentence. "In those Tok'ra armbands at McNally's--" he finally choked out, as Daniel first stared, and then burst into laughter himself.

"Wow," Daniel said when he'd finally regained some composure. He wiped his eyes. "It feels good to--you know."

"Yeah," Jon said.

"I mean--"

"There's a pretty small group of people who really know anything about us, or our lives," Jon said. "I get it."

"Sometimes it just feels good to acknowledge things. To say things out loud."

"Yeah," Jon said. "I didn't feel like that so much before, but I do now."

"It's..um..hard for you, I know. I guess. I mean, you have memories--"

"I don't look at all of them as memories," Jon said. "Some of it -- Iraq, the way Sara's hair smelled -- that's just knowledge I have. It's not mine. It's not _me_."

"Oh," Daniel said. "Dissociation."

"Knowledge," Jon said firmly.

"Oh," Daniel said again.

"But some of it -- those are my memories. Maybe they're his, but they're mine, too."

"Oh?" Daniel said.

"Abydos," Jon said.

"That's--I'm glad," Daniel said softly, picking up a pawn and examining it minutely. "I need someone else to remember."

"He remembers, Daniel."

"I need someone to do more than remember," Daniel admitted.

Jon rolled his eyes. "He still won't talk to you?"

Daniel replaced the pawn. "It's not...no. Not about anything serious. Neither will Sam." He turned the pawn a fraction, and nudged it until it lined up precisely with the piece next to it. "I can't blame them, really."

"You keep leaving them."

"Yeah."

"I mean, you know better than anyone how that feels. Being left behind."

Daniel looked at him. "Okay, okay, I get it," he said. "You're definitely not Jack."

Jon grinned.

"I don't do it on purpose," Daniel said. "The leaving."

Jon laughed. "We have some really strange conversations."

"What?"

" _I don't keep dying on purpose._ "

"We have some really strange lives."

"I won't argue with you on that."

"Like I said, you're definitely not Jack."

"I think--" Jon began, and then started again. "They just want to pick up where they left off, Daniel."

"I know," Daniel sighed. "It's just -- I can't do that. I'm not the same person I was. I wish someone could understand that."

Jon looked at him.

"I mean, someone else," Daniel said. "But how come _you_ can understand that?"

"'Cause I can't exactly pick up where I left off, either, seeing as I don't actually have a 'left off'," Jon said too quietly, each word clipped and precise. "Seeing how being a born-again teenager is a constant reminder that I'm not 'the same'."

"No, I mean, other than that," Daniel said with a straight face.

Jon stared at him a minute, punched him in the arm, and then sank back into the couch again. "It'll work out in time," he said. He picked up two rooks, tried juggling them, and then dropped them back into their respective places. "I've decided. The new improved me is an optimist."

"Yeah," Daniel said. "Me, too."

"Eventually I'll be able to buy beer legally."

"And I'll--" Daniel frowned, trying to think of some equivalent happy ending for himself. "If I get married again, I won't know who to ask to be my best man," he said suddenly.

"You planning to get married again?" Jon asked.

"Well, I--no, I just mean that this is complicated. You're you, but he's--"

"It's that cute nurse who works the night shift, isn't it? Pagliarri. Pagliaterri. Yeah, Pagliaterri. The brunette. You always had an eye for her."

"Paglia--? No!" Daniel sputtered. "I just meant--"

"You don't like her? Carter said Janet said _she_ likes _you_."

"It's not about whether I li--she likes me?"

"You could ask Sam," Jon said.

"I--no, I couldn't. She'd tell Janet, and I'd never hear the end of it."

"To be your best man," Jon said. "That would be--well, I'd understand. And he'd be able to deal with it. At least, more than if you asked _me_."

They looked at each other for a minute.

"I hope you do get married again," Jon said. "You'd like having kids. You'd be a good father."

Daniel opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

"Of course, you'd be hopeless teaching them about sports. And a kid has to know about sports. So I'd have to, you know, keep in touch and help you out with that stuff."

Daniel let out a long breath. "Yeah," he said. He looked carefully at the board, chewing his lip."Yeah, that would be--yeah, you'd have to do that." He took a deep breath and stood up as though he'd forgotten how. "I brought you a beer. You want it now?"

"You brought me a beer?"

"Yeah."

" _One_?"

"One."

"Okay. Yeah."

Daniel went off to the kitchen as though an army of Goa'uld were at his heels.

 

_2._

Jon rearranged the chess pieces, smirking, but after a moment replaced them all. Then he leafed through the TV Guide, slowly. Four times. Finally, Daniel came back and settled into a chair.

"Thanks," Jon said, grabbing the condensation-slicked bottle from his hand.

"No big deal," Daniel said.

"For everything," Jon said. He took a long, cold slug of beer, and then a deep breath. He kept his eyes on the board. "For showing up to play chess. For telling the school you're my emergency contact. For--"

"Correcting the mistakes in your Sociology report?"

"I would have gotten an 'A' even without you," Jon said, looking up. "But that reminds me, I have to translate a bunch of stupid stuff for my French class. .."

"No," Daniel said. "But for the rest -- I was an emancipated minor, too. I know what it's like." He stopped for a moment, thoughts racing across his face."Well, maybe not exactly what it's like for you. But this is as close as I'm ever going to get to knowing anyone else who--"

"For the beer," Jon said. "For treating me like _me_."

Daniel smiled. "An obnoxious asshole?"

"An obnoxious asshole named Jon."

"The asshole formerly known as Jack," Daniel said, chuckling.

"Okay, enough with the honesty. Don't you want to thank _me_?"

"Thank you," Daniel said immediately. "For--"

"I know," Jon said.

"Accepting the descended being who formerly made people squint," Daniel said.

Jon winced. "That's _awful_ ," he said.

"I know," Daniel said. He leaned forward and moved a chess piece. "And you know what else?"

"What?"

"Checkmate in four," Daniel said.

"That's what you think," Jon said. "But you don't know what I'm going to do next."

Daniel looked up. "I--" he began, only to be cut off by his cell phone ringing. He gave Jon an apologetic look and flipped it open. "Yeah..Oh, hi, Jack.Where am I? Just out. No, I just needed some air. Yeah, um, on P3X-672, in the--oh, they did? Are they--they need a translation of _what_? Well, yeah, I can see how--yeah, I can come in. I'm on my way." He snapped the phone shut and squinted. "I, um, have to--"

"Yeah, I heard. Duty calls."

Daniel got up. "I'll see you."

"Yeah." Jon nodded, and saluted him with the beer. "Whenever. Open door, you know." Daniel stood for a minute, and then turned and made his way out of the room.  Jon followed him. "Hey," he said to Daniel's back. "By the way. The game? You didn't win."

Daniel turned again, one hand on the doorknob. "No," he said. "Not yet."

"I mean," Jon amended, "it's not over."

"The obese female has not yet begun her vocal performance, as Teal'c would say," Daniel said. He smiled briefly, and touched Jon's shoulder. "I have to go," he said. "But I'll be back."

"Undomesticated equines," Jon said under his breath. "Go," he continued, more loudly. "And try not to screw up too much -- I won't be old enough to save the world for a few years yet."

"Yeah," Daniel said, and then he was out the door. "Don't even think about moving the pieces," he called over his shoulder.

"Me?" Jon yelled after him.

"I know you," Daniel's warning floated back.

"Maybe," Jon said to himself. Then he stood for a while, watching the space where Daniel's car had been, before finally shutting the door.

END 


End file.
